Day: November 9, 2018

The term “cultural appropriation” or, more accurately “misappropriation”, is a phrase that’s been in use at least since the 1970s, but has only recently started to enter popular lexicon. In the 1990s there was a backlash against politically correct culture. Modern-day moaning about people concerned about cultural misappropriation reminds me very much of that era.

“Electric Arrows”, a short story by Annie Proulx, was published in the late 1990s. Proulx was ahead of the vanguard, keenly aware of cultural misappropriation when most folk were offering their takes on political correctness.

“Electric Arrows” is one of the few Annie Proulx has written in first person. Her narrator, Mason Clew, is learned and thoughtful enough to tell a story well enough, though she does mimic the back-and-forth, circuitous nature of an amateur storyteller. And just as well she does, repeating names and introductions, because this is one of her more ‘elliptical’ stories (a word often used to describe Proulx’s work), and readers certainly benefit from a second pass through. Continue reading “Electric Arrows by Annie Proulx”